Supreme Court in Vermont Voids Land Claims of Abenaki Indians
MONTPELIER, Vt., June 17 (AP) - The Abenaki Indians' Claims to about
150 square miles of land in northwestern Vermont have been voided by
the "increasing weight of history," the State Supreme Court has ruled.
The court's unanimous decision, issued Monday, overturned a ruling
by a lower court, which held in 1989 that the Abenaki had aboriginal
rights to fish in their ancestral homeland's streams without state
licenses.
The Abenaki, who number about 2,500, had used the 1989 decision to
argue that they did not have to abide by state laws. They cited the
absence of any treaty over the centuries ceding their rights to the
land.
About 70 cases will be affected by the ruling, including charges of
driving with Abenaki license plates and hunting without licenses, said
Howard Van Benthuysen, the State's Attorney in Franklin County, which
encompasses the disputed land.
Case to be Pursued
"We think this affirms our position all along," he said. "That is,
that all Vermonters are equal before the law."
Homer St. Francis, chief of the Missisquoi tribe of the Abenaki
Nation, and Michael Delaney, a tribal judge, condemned the decision.
"What the ruling does," they said in a statement, " is justify the
theft and continuing occupation of Abenaki land. The members of the
Supreme Court are heirs to the political structure put in place by the
founders of Vermont. Could this defense of the legitimacy of their
title be politically motivated?"
Chief St. Francis said the tribe would take the case to the Federal
courts. "We're headed for the U.S. Supreme Court on this," he said.
The lands at issue, largely forest and farmland, stretch from
northwestern Vermont to the Canadian border. The case started with
the arrents of 30 Abenaki at a 1987 "fish-in" demonstration on the
Missisquoi River to assert what the tribe said was its right to fish
without state licenses.
Judge Joseph Wolchik of Franklin County District Court dismissed the
charges, ruling that the state had failed to prove that the Indians
had given up their ancestral homeland.
But the high court said the loss of aboriginal rights "may be
established by the increasing weight of history."
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Brief commentary by Gary:
The logic used by the Vermont Supreme Court sounds a lot like what I
recall was being used in the British Columbia (Canada) courts in a
land rights case that we discussed a while back. The tendency of the
judges in these cases appears to be to assert something along the
lines that no explicit legal procedure is necessary in order to
extinguish aboriginal rights to land.
I'd be interested in hearing other opinions on this case, plus any
information from people familiar with other similar cases involving
aboriginal land claims. Please send those and other comments to the
discussion list address: nn.chat@gnosys.svle.ma.us
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst